Travel Diary- Orlando – Part Deux

Day 3- Sunday June 15th

Yesterday was quite hot but the forecast for the day was for a few possible showers. We didn’t want it to rain but would definitely have welcomed the odd shower. The agenda for the day was to visit the Sea world and do what we called the “fancy dinner”. Fancy dinner is nothing but our jargon for trying a new cuisine. We narrowed our choices to either of the three- Brazilian, Mediterranean or Mexican. It is funny because in all these restaurants there will exactly be one vegetarian dish and we would literally plead with the hot waitress not to add anything which remotely resembled a broccoli or a mushroom and we would want it desi style with unbelievable amounts of masala. Hey, you can’t take the indian out of us!

Sea world- there is something about a theme park that brings out the kid in all of us, especially if it has anything to do with water. The irony again is that 3 out of the 5 of us couldn’t swim. We were totally looking forward to it despite being bloody tired. We watched dolphins glide in a pool and were quite desperate to touch it but smart bugger wouldn’t come near us unless we had food in our hands. I did manage to touch a slimy jelly fish and trust me it didn’t feel good touching it. Then came the biggest challenge- the KRAKEN- this was supposed to biggest and longest roller coaster ride in all of Orlando. Those cheeky bastards had posters all over the theme park daring us to do the ride and it was the challenge the three little (actually quite old) devils were up to. KD tried to spice up things a little bit by pushing S and me to do the ride by sitting in the front row. I came up with a rather lame excuse of longer queues for the first row and “chickened out”. I was nervous and was having a chat with the operator and she scared me further by saying that the ride would last 3 minutes and 45 seconds. I was sure that it would seem like eternity on a roller coaster. I told myself I am not going to yell irrespective of how scary the ride was – As Russell Peter’s says “Be a man do the right thing”. I didn’t yell and enjoyed the ride while S let out the customary shriek and I think KD was scared for the first time. I don’t think the ride lasted more than 2 minutes. I indulged myself by buying a rather costly panama hat after the successful ride. I think it looks cool but my friends except KD think it looks quite silly.

We watched a show which was based on the Pirates of the caribbean and was enacted by Sea lion and 2 otters. The sea lion had an uncanny resemblance to me given its size. Thank heavens I shaved my moustache a year back or else even my mom would have been confused. We grabbed a quick bite and then decided to go a wild arctic tour. We had to reach the place in a simulated chopper ride which will plummet into the ground and then take off just before hitting the ground. The estimated speed of the ride was 440 mph/-. We did not understand the magnitude of the ride until we experienced it. It had all of us shaken and stirred and another couple of minutes I am sure one of us would have puked. The most affected was K- he was sweating like a pig. I am sure the man was the first and probably the only bloke who will ever sweat in the Arctic. We saw a polar bear which apparently sleeps for 16-18 hrs per day. I remarked- Its not sleeping it has just fainted seeing K sweat in the arctic. K and M had opted out of the all rides because they wouldn’t feel comfortable and ironically joined us in the craziest ride of them all- the simulated chopper ride

The highlight of the day was the “Shamu show” that we watched. It was a show about 5 killer whales that worked with a few men and women and put up an incredible performance. It just seemed to obey every order (or request- those creatures are unbelievably big) that was laid to them. For the second continuous day the last act was incredible and the best of the day that we went back quite satisfied.

Now to the fancy dinner- I had a terrible head ache and didn’t really care which cuisine we chose as long as we finished dinner and were back to the hotel early. An over zealous M talked us into trying a Mediterranean restaurant while the rest of us were leaning towards Mexican. Unsurprisingly as it so often is the case we didn’t get a huge variety of vegetarian dishes and this led to M wanting to change our dinner place. KD was already quite annoyed about having “late” dinners (at 8.30 or later) and came bloody close to flipping out. But she held her nerve. K, S and me understood the situation and said that we wouldn’t mind having a pizza as long as KD held back. M didn’t quite the hint and was insisting for a change despite being the guy who picked this restaurant. The moment passed peacefully and we did do Mexican.

Day 4- Monday June 16th

Last day- The plan was to do a boat ride in a swampy area and have the chance to look at some exotic birds and a few alligators. Given that the trip involved two pretty women there isn’t chance in hell that we couldn’t have got away without shopping. We left the hotel by about half nine in the morning and took a 30 minute drive to reach this place. There weren’t a lot of people and the water wasn’t tempting. We went on a speed boat and got quite excited every time the water splashed on our face. The gators chose not to see my face and all we got to see was one baby gator and 4 birds which basically meant we spent 4 bucks per animal. Quite costly I would say.

Given that I had bought a panama hat yesterday I felt like a crocodile hunter and decided to pose with a gator in my hand. The fact that its mouth was plastered seemed trivial to me but seemed ultra important to anyone who saw the pic- people are picky. We did some shopping in the afternoon and I bought myself a pair of shoes and some clothes. It seemed quite strange to me that K was taking the missus’s advice every time he picked a shirt- this from a man who used to dismiss everyone’s idea about which clothes to pick till about 3 months back. Marriage does bring a huge change in men.

We went out for a drink in the evening and also wanted to catch a glimpse of downtown-Orlando. The place was unbelievably quite and empty and we couldn’t believe that there were so many bars and corporate houses in that area. We were having a quite chat and did some touristy things like taking pictures in front of statues. The madness was increasing and we then decided to smoke a cigar. We bought 2 cigars and decided to share them – None of us had a clue about which cigar to buy-the only ones we knew were Cubans and these are illegal in the US. We decided to go with something called a blondie- It is so much different from a cigarette – KD and M explained it was because we weren’t inhaling the smoke.

We came back to the hotel and ordered Indian food and turned in by about 12. We had a flight to catch at six in the morning and had to leave the hotel by 4 much to M’s annoyance who didn’t have a flight to catch until half seven.

Orlando is a wonderful place and I would recommend it to almost anyone. I am so glad we didn’t do a vegas.

Cheers
S